The trouble with waking up
by V-San
Summary: An innocent comment one day leads to a series of morning surprises for Mildred, each more extreme than the last. Enid won't stop until Mildred is woken up and ready to go!
1. Welcome to the jungle

_Chapter 1 – Welcome to the jungle_

It all really began a few weeks after Miss Cackle's birthday celebrations.

Mildred had mentioned one day to Maud and Enid that she had a problem when it came to getting out of bed, which often caused her to be late for breakfast.

"I'm not really a morning person." She had lamented.

The problem being that, morning person or not, Miss Hardbroom would wait for no pupil. Especially not Mildred Hubble.

Thus began the series of events that would later be known as: 'Enid's shock tactics – get Mildred out of bed quickly!'

It had sounded innocent enough when she said it (as most of her ideas did at first), Enid had proposed to wake herself up a little earlier and help Mildred to get out of bed, that way HB would have nothing to complain about. Knowing how persistent her friend could be, and deciding that this attitude could help with her problem, Mildred agreed to the idea almost immediately.

She regretted it much later on of course.

Having explained the general idea to Mildred, Enid left her friend's room that night with the promise of an early morning start.

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"Mildred, it's time to get up."

Enid's sing-song tone of voice interrupted the restful sleep that Mildred had been enjoying and she quickly felt herself returning to consciousness. Mumbling something incoherently back to her friend she burrowed herself further into the bed sheets.

"Come on Mildred get up, he's not going to wait for you all day."

'_He? What is she talking about?'_

As Mildred puzzled over just what her friend had said, she slowly became aware of several things; there seemed to be an unusually heavy weight on her chest, a faint hissing sound was coming from somewhere near her head and Enid herself sounded like she was trying not to giggle at something.

Deciding to open her eyes to see where the noise was coming from and what Enid found so funny, Mildred was met with the alarming sight of a pair of amber coloured eyes. It took a moment for her to register that said pair of eyes was attached to the head of a rather large snake, the rest of which happened to be draped across her chest, and who seemed intent on staring at her with a hungry sort of expression.

Once she realized this, everything seemed to happen at once. The snake gave an almighty hiss which was all it took for Mildred to turn white as a sheet and let out a great shriek, throwing herself out of bed towards the far wall. The movement propelled the snake off the bed and into the air, where it hung for a moment before landing with a soft _flump_ on the floor.

The whole series of events couldn't have lasted longer than ten seconds, but it was all Enid needed to lose control completely and she quickly descended into full blown laughter.

"Oh Mildred," she gasped between breaths, "You really are the limit, I didn't think you'd jump so wonderfully out of bed like that!" By now, there were tears of mirth running down her face and she was almost doubled over laughing.

"That wasn't funny Enid!" Mildred choked out, her face was now deathly pale and she had sunk down to her knees on the floor in shock.

The door chose that moment to slam open and Maud rushed in, half dressed and alarm all over her face, which only doubled once she took in her friend's face and sunken form.

"I heard Mildred scream, what's going on?"

Enid only proceeded to laugh harder and weakly pointed to the snake still lying on the floor by way of explanation.

The reptile blinked lazily back at Maud, who took in the sight of the animal with a puzzled expression before carefully stepping over it to get to Mildred, who had not yet moved from her position on the floor.

"Millie?"

Maud knelt down and gently shook her friend by the shoulder, which seemed to break her out of the surprised stupor she had fallen into as she began to shakily stand up once more, using the wall as a support.

"What was the idea of putting a snake on my chest while I slept all about?" She demanded of Enid, who had taken the time to calm herself down and was gathering the snake up in her arms.

"You asked me to wake you up and I did." Enid replied, a grin on her face. "You didn't say _how_ you wanted me to get you up."

"But…a snake?! Where did you even get it from?" Was the reply from Mildred, as she eyed the animal in her friend's arms cautiously.

Enid shrugged, "Oh him? The same places I get all my animals from, I improvise." She muttered a spell under her breath and Maud and Mildred watched as the sleek snake in her arms was surrounded by a whirl of magical sparkles, vanishing to reveal Enid's black cat.

"I thought you'd stopped trying to make a menagerie out of your cat." Maud sighed. "Half the corridor's wondering what's going on. They thought someone had attacked Mildred."

Enid looked like she was seconds away from falling into hysterics once again, so Mildred hurried across the room and started to usher her out of the still open door, noting with some annoyance that most of the girls passing by the door and looking into her room curiously were fully dressed and on their way down, whereas she still had to get ready. Maud also then seemed to realise her own state of half undress, so she said hurried goodbyes to her friends and rushed back to her own room.

"Looks like I'm late again." Sighed Mildred wearily as she watched her friend go.

She was about to close the door and turn to get ready herself when Enid turned to her, cat in arms and a cheeky smile on her face.

"So, same time tomorrow?"

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_AN. I'm trying my hand at humour this time, perhaps I'm my own worst critic but it doesn't seem as funny to me now as it did in my head, but hopefully I've managed to keep the three girls in character. I'm intending this to be a multi chaptered fic, mostly centered on these three, but with other characters coming in and out from time to time.  
__Chapter 2 is in progress, but I'm slow so updates might be a while apart.  
Hope you like it~_


	2. Raising the roof

_Chapter 2- Raising the roof_

After many protests from Mildred and Maud, neither of whom wanted to be surprised again so early in the morning, Enid promised to wake Mildred up in a more reasonable manner the next morning.

The promise lasted about a week and a half.

When asked later about it, Enid would insist that she hadn't broken the promise at all, she'd just…set events into motion that resulted in Mildred waking up with a bit of a fright.

Everyone else would insist that these events also resulted in half of the castle being woken up scared out of their wits.

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Miss Cackle prided herself on her ability to trust students no matter what; it was probably this trust which had kept Mildred at Cackle's academy for so long. It made her a just and fair headmistress and not the kind of woman to jump to undue conclusions right off the bat.

So she really thought nothing of it when Enid asked her at the end of that afternoon's lesson if she could show her the basics of the Levitation spell learned at the start of term.

Seeing as Enid had indeed missed that lesson, Miss Cackle was only too happy to help and she set about teaching her the spell, making sure she had a good mastery of the incantation and the meaning behind it required.

A more suspicious teacher such as Miss Hardbroom or even Miss Drill would probably have questioned Enid's sudden interest in knowledge of spell casting outside of class, but Miss Cackle just took it as a sign that Enid was finally settling down and getting on with it.

Therefore, she completely missed the glimmering look of mischief in her pupil's eye as she steadily mastered the spell.

If she had known what Enid planned to do with the spell only hours later, she probably would have reconsidered her opinion completely.

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So the next morning found Enid slipping silently out of her room and towards Mildred's on the other end of the hall, plan in mind and her fingers itching to do some magic.

It was simple really; she'd use the levitation spell that Miss Cackle had taught her to lift Mildred right off her bed. The weightless sensation combined with the slight tickling that the spell caused should be enough to ensure that once she was woken up, the shock of finding herself in the air should keep her awake.

Brilliant, if she did say so herself.

Pausing in front of her destination, she spread her fingers out towards the room and felt the magic start to trickle down her arms.

Attempting the spell through the door wasn't going to be easy, but she needed enough time to be able to go back to her room once Mildred woke up, leaving her no choice but to cast it in the hallway.

"_Altus…"_

Her eyes were shut in concentration and she could feel the magic growing more powerful.

"_Altar…"_

Stronger now, the spell was almost ready to go to work.

"_Alto…"_

Just about ready, her fingers were near sparking with built up energy and the magic was still flowing smoothly down her extended limbs, charging her up with even more power.

Enid was so absorbed in the spell that she completely failed to notice the opening of the door at the other end of the hall and the heavy booted footsteps coming towards her at all.

She might have happily carried on not noticing them except for the fact that the owner of the footsteps chose the exact moment that Enid was reciting the very last line to grip her shoulder and proclaim in a booming voice.

"And what do you think you are up to Enid Nightshade?"

Resulting in the last line of Enid's spell to be a surprised shriek of "_ALTISSIMA_!" and a supercharged stream of magic erupting from her fingers as she whirled around to the terrifyingly stormy face of Miss Hardbroom, eyes burning and nostrils flaring, looking none too pleased.

It would be quite accurate to say that what happened next was utter pandemonium.

All at once, screams echoed throughout the castle and Enid quickly worked it out in her head.

'_I said the last line pretty loud, couple that with the fact that I amplified that spell power by about double, I'd guess that…"_

Her suspicions were confirmed as all at once something seemed to hit the ceilings above their heads, resulting in a shower of grit and powdery stone spraying down and falling on their heads.

'_I levitated awake the whole castle.'_

Miss Hardbroom cleared her throat audibly and Enid suddenly realised she was probably in a lot of trouble. Turning back to her form mistress, she had to stifle a laugh.

Miss Hardbroom seemed to have taken the brunt of the dust shower, and was covered in a fine white powder, making her look rather like a figurine in a christmas snow globe.

Needless to say, she was not amused in the slightest and the fierce, fiery look being shot her way told Enid _exactly_ how much trouble she was in.

It probably couldn't have gotten any worse, until Mildred's door shot open and she threw herself out wildly, coming to a sort of jumbled halt right in front of the pair.

She took in the scene in front of her with wide eyes and quick breaths looking for all the world like a cat who'd just had its tail trodden on.

Enid sheepishly said the first thing she could think of in this kind of situation.

"Good Morning?"

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_AN. Phew~ I'm glad that chapter's finally done with. This one didn't want to play itself right in my head at all, and ended up I changing the whole plot of it into what you see now. I'd orginally planned something else, but the magic involved seemed a little complex for first years. Hopefully the next chapter shouldn't take as long, since part of the delay for this one was ideas for the next two chapters springing up on meXD_

_Thanks for the reviews for last chapter, hope you liked this one~_


	3. Alarm bells in C minor

_Chapt. 3-Alarm bells in C minor_

Levitating on a mass scale as an alarm clock.

The staff had called it an outrageous fiasco and lectured Enid for a full hour and a half on the subject; Miss Hardbroom herself had given her 200 lines of:

_It is not, nor will it ever be, a good idea to levitate someone to wake them up._

She had been placed in detention for three days and had to help Miss Bat to organize the great hall for the school orchestra for a full week.

If the staff had known what would have come out of all of this, they probably would have endeavoured to keep Enid as far away from Miss Bat as possible.

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Over the course of the week that Enid was helping Miss Bat, she learned two very interesting things:

One, Mildred had taken to sleeping with earplugs in, out of fear of Enid's next wake up tactic.

Two, Miss Bat had a very odd habit of remaining behind after the orchestra practices had finished, seizing several of the noisiest instruments and proceeding to screech at the top of her lungs like a banshee.

Singing, as she called it.

Now, it wasn't as if Miss Bat couldn't sing. Being the chanting mistress of Cackles for nearing on 20 years now had given her at least some expertise in that area, it was just that the notes she favoured were somewhat…_alarming _to the human eardrums, to put it mildly.

There were few Second years willing to talk about her impromptu 'Symphony of the autumn breeze' the year before the First years arrived.

There were few able for that matter.

All this set Enid's mind working once more, previous lectures and detentions forgotten altogether as a plan guaranteed to wake up Mildred without upsetting the entire castle formed in her mind. But first she was going to have to ask for some help.

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"A tape recorder? What do you need one of those for?"

Everyone in the castle knew that if there was any sort of technology needed in a hurry, Ruby Cherrytree was the one to ask. Her knowledge of mechanical gizmos was unrivalled and it was widely believed that she herself had invented half of the gadgets she was caught around school with.

"Nothing really, I just need to record something on it."

Enid was being purposefully vague, she didn't really want to run the risk that HB might have been listening in on the conversation and would find out what she was up to. The problem was that all this vagueness seemed to be putting Ruby off as well, if the doubtful look in her eyes was anything to go by.

"Look," she said hurriedly, "I'll bring it right back. I really only need to get one thing and Ill be done, you won't even notice it's gone."

"Well if you're sure. But can it wait 'till after dinner? I don't really feel like hunting around for it right this second."

"That's fine, orchestra practice isn't until after dinner anyway."

This got Ruby's attention. "Orchestra practice? You want to record some music?"

"Something like that."

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After dinner the recorder was hurriedly procured and handed to Enid, who rushed off to help set up the great hall for the practice.

Sitting and listening to the girls play their instruments, Enid took the time to familiarise herself with how to work the small tape recorder. She captured herself muttering silly tongue twisters into the machine while someone blew loudly into an oboe behind her.

"Enid? Would you like to help move these chairs back?" Called Miss Bat from across the hall, it seemed the practice was over meaning it was time for her to set part one of her plan into action.

"Miss Bat?" Enid called in the most innocent tone she could muster. "Um…I was wondering, hoping really that since we have all the instruments out here, if you wouldn't mind maybe singing something?"

This really seemed to get the chanting mistress's attention as she instantly dropped the flutes she was carrying and whirled back to face Enid, eyes wide.

Everyone knew that if you wanted to get Miss Bat to do something, there were a few steps you had to take and Enid was willing and ready to put this knowledge to good use to get her to sing.

For step one, all you really had to do was stoke her ego a little.

"It's just that I'd heard some of the other girls saying what a natural gift for chanting you had, and I really wanted to be able to hear it for myself you see."

There, the bait was cast. Miss Bat had a small, pleased smile on her face and a faint blush on her cheeks. All that was needed was for the fish to bite the hook. Enid threw out her _coup de grace_. Step two, HB.

"But if you don't want to…well I suppose Miss Hardbroom must not have been lying when she said you didn't like to sing in front of others because your voice is comparable to a crow in mid-morning."

The rivalry between the two teachers was longstanding and legendary, so of course the pupils of Cackle's took advantage of it when they could. It worked every time.

Hook line and sinker. At the mention of Miss Hardbroom, the chanting mistress's eyes narrowed and her face turned sour, the further criticism of her voice seemed to ignite some fire within. All at once Miss Bat was a flurry of frenzied motion.

"A crow in mid-morning indeed! What that _woman_ would know about singing could fill a small book!"

She dragged Enid over to one of the chairs left out and sat her down roughly before flitting her way over to the piano and seating herself with a flourish. She was so caught up in her anger that she didn't notice as Enid discreetly pulled out the tape recorder and sat it in her lap.

A few notes were keyed experimentally and Miss Bat cleared her throat grandly in preparation.

It began.

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Enid walked out of the great hall a half an hour later feeling quite dizzy, she was sure that the high pitched wails had affected her sense of balance somehow.  
She supposed she should have been grateful that it wasn't worse. There weren't many people that could sit through three of Miss Bat's compositions and come out walking.

She had what she needed though and that was all that really mattered. Tottering over to the steps leading to the dorms, she slowly made her way up and towards Mildred's room. All the girls were at dinner already and her friends knew that sometimes her detentions would run over so she knew she wouldn't be missed for a while yet.

Once she made it to Mildred's room, she seized the earplugs lying on the bedside table and placed them on the floor, setting the tape recorder down next to them.

Spreading her fingers out towards the objects she felt the familiar sparks of power moving down her limbs. This spell was much simpler than the levitation one and the plugs were in plain sight so casting was quick and easy.

"_Admoveo__, __admelicus, adauditio, admatutinus!"_

Sprinkles of power shot from her fingers and danced along the plugs and recorder like fairy lights of all colours. The lights themselves seemed to be carrying something from the tape recorder across to the plugs, just as planned.

Soon enough the spell ended and Enid picked up both the items. She set the ear plugs back where she had found them and pressed the play button on the tape recorder, noting with some satisfaction that the tape was now as blank as it had been before.

Pocketing the recorder she made her way out and downstairs to dinner. The door shut and all was quiet in Mildred's room, but if someone had been in the room and had listened very closely, they may have heard a faint sound, rather like a crow.

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There was no need for Enid to even go over to Mildred's room the next morning, as the loud wails of the chanting teacher, volume turned to double the sound levels, coupled with Mildred's shrieks of surprise sounding off through the walls told her everything she really needed to know.

So when Maud slammed open the door moments later, Enid was already up, sat on her bed with a winning smile which contrasted quite nicely with Maud's icy stare.

"What have you done?!" Maud shouted, trying to make herself heard over 'Twilight sonata with crash symbols' echoing down the halls.

To her credit, Enid didn't start laughing for about five seconds longer than she usually would have. But as the magically amplified noise got several octaves louder and Miss Bat herself came running past the door, hands flying about her head and nightclothes rumpled, she really couldn't take it anymore and proceeded to fall swiftly off the bed as she laughed herself silly.

"Nothing really, just making sure Mildred can hear her alarm through those earplugs!"

Maud was not amused. The fact that the earplugs seemed to have been charmed, not only to duplicate Miss Bat's singing, but to get louder every five minutes just made the whole thing even worse. Add Miss Cackle looking quite shell shocked in a battered dressing gown, appearing suddenly at the door and the whole morning just seemed lost.

"What is the meaning of this Enid Nightshade?"

Enid sobered up slightly and pointed towards the general direction of the noise.

"It should stop soon, there are only three songs!"

This didn't seem to improve either Maud's nor Miss Cackle's moods in the slightest, though the grin Enid wore certainly wasn't helping.

It was fully expected that the din coming from down the hall would continue for quite some time, so when there were a series of loud bangs from the vicinity of Mildred's room followed by silence, everyone was suddenly quite curious as to what had happened.

When Miss Hardbroom emerged a moment later with a blackened, smoking pair of earplugs in hand and a dangerous gleam in her eye, those present knew that the Potions mistress had quite probably saved the eardrums of the entire school.

They also knew that Enid was in a lot of trouble, if the murderous look was anything to go by.

The fact that Miss Hardbroom's nightdress was pale pink did absolutely nothing to detract from this at all.

"Enid Nightshade, I'd like to have a few words with you."

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_AN. First off, I'm so sorry this took as long to update as it did. I've been very busy with work and college lately so my writing time has just vanished. I'd like to say that this won't happen often, but since my workload is getting larger now, it's likely that there will some time between updates. But I don't plan to abandon this story, so there will be updates eventually.  
This chapter frustrated me to no end with it's constant scene changes, but I couldn't figure out how to make the story work without them really, so the real humor comes in right at the end. Miss Bat worried me, did she seem in character here?_

_Anyway, hope you liked it~_


	4. Interruption, prevention

_Chapter 4-Interruption, prevention, it's all the same thing really._

Enid whistled merrily to herself as she made her way down the hallway for the first year dorm rooms towards Mildred's room.

There was a skip in her step and a smile on her face. To most people who didn't know her well, she would have looked the picture of innocence. To those that did, she probably would have looked like a natural disaster waiting to strike.

She had a special surprise in store for Mildred this morning, an alarm guaranteed to get her sleepy friend out of bed.

A frying pan and ladle pilfered from the kitchens earlier on swung back and forth in her hands. If it were at all possible for cooking utensils to look ominous, chances are these two would have done at that moment in time.

Enid had a faint idea that Mildred and several other girls along the first year corridor were getting a little fed up with her bizarre and shocking ways to get Mildred out of bed, as they seemed to be causing commotion in the mornings. She was also aware that Miss Drill had mentioned something during the detentions last week about 'finding a better use for her time than causing an uproar', but if she was honest she probably hadn't been paying attention at the time.

Still, it had been a while since she had started her wake up calls, so at the very least she was expecting to run into a teacher who would then give her another detention of some sort.

What she had not expected to see was Maud; half asleep and stood in front of Mildred's door like some sort of watchdog.

She seemed to be having trouble staying awake herself, as her head would drop slightly every few seconds before coming to rest forwards and after a while she would jerk violently awake again.

She seemed quite unaware of Enid just around the corner, watching her.

As Maud attempted to keep herself awake and keep a lookout, she realized she probably wasn't doing a good job of keeping watch for Enid. Though if she was honest with herself later on, the fact that she had been standing guard in front of Mildred's door for nearing on two hours already might have had something to do with it.

_The problem with Enid's alarms, _she mused to herself grumpily, _aren't that she does them in the most outrageous way possible, it's that you never know _when _she's going to do them._

As she mulled over what it would be like to have a nice normal morning, Maud noticed something quite odd.

There seemed to be a ladle floating several inches off the ground just behind the corner of the hall.

Maud stared dumbly at the sight for a moment, sleepily wondering if ladles were _meant _to float like that. Then her brain caught up with her and she realized that nothing was supposed to float like that, least of all a ladle.

She hazarded a guess at what was going to happen and called out faintly,

"Enid, come out from behind there please."

Hearing what sounded like an annoyed mutter, Maud knew she'd guessed correctly and watched her friend step out reluctantly from behind the wall with a frying pan and ladle in hand.

Fixing Enid with a stare, Maud asked wearily,

"Just what are you planning to do with those so early in the morning?"

Enid tried her best to look innocent, but the absurdity of carrying around two cooking utensils at 5am cancelled it out altogether, making her look as guilty as Maud was determined to prove she was.

"Well you know," she tried anyway, "thought I'd ask Mrs. Tapioca if I could help her out in the kitchens, seems like a lovely morning for it."

"The kitchens are that way Enid." Said Maud as she pointed towards the direction Enid had obviously just come from.

"Ah…well you see, I remembered I forgot to get some…some pepper, and…um…" As imaginative as she was, if Enid had a fault, she couldn't lie to save her life.

Holding out a hand to stop her friend's babble, Maud shook her head and sighed.

"Look, I know what it is that you're doing, I know you have some noisy bothersome way to wake Mildred up using those things but I'm not going to let you."

This bold statement seemed to take Enid off guard for a moment, her eyes widened in surprise and she almost lost her grip on the pan.

"Wait, you've got it wrong Maud, I just want to bang these together to get her up so she won't be late."

"And I'm quite sure you've found a way to make them sing the national anthem, or cover her in paint, or turn her bed sheets into grass-"

"Now there's an idea." Enid interrupted excitedly, her face lit up in joy.

"Yes, but not today, or this week, or even this month. I won't let you use anymore magical alarm methods."

"But all I want to do is hit the pan with the ladle. They'll make a natural sounding noise and get her up."

"By natural, I'm sure you mean unnaturally magical."

"Naturally, if I had magic spells put on them they would make a naturally unnatural sound, but unnaturally for myself I have good naturedly decided to use natural methods to wake her up."

Maud stopped in her argument and carefully ran over what her friend had just said, coming to the only conclusion available to her right at the moment.

"Stop trying to confuse me while I'm half-asleep!!"

She seemed quite angry now; the morning light streaming in through the window caught the lenses of her glasses and made them glint dangerously. Enid contemplated a quick retreat, but Maud wasn't about to let the troublemaker get away that easily.

"I'm not going to let you do this anymore Enid, this 'wake Mildred and the castle up and leave us scared out of our wits' routine. It's gone on long enough. HB's this close to throttling you in your sleep, if Miss Cackle doesn't kick you out first."

Enid stood for a moment in silent thought, mulling over Maud's words and the events of the morning thus far before offering up a suggestion.

"What about if I just use natural noises, like this pan hitting the ladle. No singing teachers or howling animals, just a normal sound?"

Enid waited for a moment, seeing that her friend seemed to be buying the idea.

"Look, I'll just bang on the frying pan with the ladle a few times to wake her up. That's all."

Maud studied Enid for a few seconds, taking in her hopeful expression and pleading eyes before conceding and letting her past.

Giving a nod of thanks in her friend's direction, Enid stepped into the room. Maud took a quick look inside at her two best friends before quietly shutting the door once more.

"Maybe…she really means it this time." She said to herself with a smile, leaning against the wall and shutting her eyes for a moment. The picture of peacefulness.

One which was ripped away only seconds later by the terrible crashing sound of what seemed to be thunder and lightning, coming from the very same room that she had just let Enid into.

In that moment, Maud knew, just _knew_ that Enid had somehow found a way to charm the frying pan so that it would cause the terrible din now echoing through the castle.

Imaginative as she was, if Enid had a fault, she could omit crucial details to save her life.

Such as the fact that the 'natural' sound was a thunderstorm in miniature.

Ignoring the shrieks and shouts coming from the surrounding rooms and praying HB hadn't heard the racket yet, she flung open the door and dashed in to perform damage control.

Again.

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_AN. This one seemed OK at first, but the ending feels a little rushed. There was a point I needed to get to, but I think I took it the wrong way from what I'd intended, see what you think, does it read OK?  
__This chapter was meant to be a little more serious than others, focusing more on the banter between the girls rather than the alarm itself, but I did try to add some good lines in here and there so it didn't feel too static. If Maud seems a little 'off' here, blame it on the sleeplessness (believe me, staying up for that amount of time will throw anyone out of whack). She'll probably be back to her usual self in other chapters._

_Hope you liked it~_


	5. The cat's meow

_Chapter 5-The cat's meow_

It was safe to say, that after just over three weeks of Enid's alarm methods, Mildred Hubble had become the most paranoid person within Cackle's academy.

No one could blame her exactly, after enduring several of Enid's more torturous ways to wake up; they were surprised she hadn't flipped her lid already.

Unknown to the first years, Fenny and Gris had actually started a betting pool for the exact time and place Mildred would finally lose her marbles.

Maud had not given up in her attempts to stop Enid in the mornings, but her success rate was low so Mildred had resorted to casting minor silencing spells around the room before she went to bed.

Had Enid not anticipated this, the spells probably would have worked. Thus Mildred spent her evenings with a haunted look about her, dreading the fated hour when HB would announce lights out.

There were also many days spent trying to dissuade Enid from any more early morning disturbances, the majority of which were in vain.

One such evening found the three girls in Mildred's room, where Maud and Mildred were trying to argue the merits of sleeping late on a Saturday.

"There's nothing else to do you see." Mildred had pointed out while Maud rushed to back up the argument.

"Some people quite like the early morning quiet."

Enid however, could not have been paying any less attention if she'd tried. She was kneeling down on Mildred's floor, currently preoccupied with dragging a piece of string up and down the room and watching Mildred's hapless cat bound and leap about in a fuddled dash to grab the offending thread.

Watching the pair on the floor, Maud sighed audibly and rolled her eyes whilst Mildred wore a defeated expression, she already seemed to be preparing herself for the horrors the next morning would bring.

In short, the discussion was going nowhere.

The girls tried valiantly to steer it back on track with a few pointed questions shot in Enid's direction;

"What about you Enid? Don't you like staying in bed on a Saturday?"

"Isn't it tiring getting up so early to wake me up? Maybe you should have the day off?"

But the only answer they received was a muted giggle of, "He~re Tabby, here cat!" that seemed to be aimed somewhere under the bed so they gave it up for the day.

While Tabby seemed to be having a whale of a time, Mildred was more concerned with the fact that Enid could use her time to make a whale out of Tabby if she got bored enough, so she grabbed the cat around the middle and hoisted him onto the bed, but not before Tabby snared the runaway string with his claws.

The contented feline spent the rest of the evening's discussion happily chewing on the bedraggled thread, and being a witching cat as he was, the occasional magic spark that danced around the string tip didn't bother him in the least.

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The next morning passed with incident. Quite a lot of incident in fact.

'_Merroow'_

Mildred found herself waking to a sound not unlike a motorbike zooming past a house at high speed.

'_MERROOOW'_

A very _loud _motorbike.

'_Merroooow, mrrawl, MROOOOW!!!'_

Judging from the faint sounds of doors banging from down the hall, it seemed as if it was not just her that was waking up to the noise.

Mildred dragged herself groggily out of bed and searched for the source of the noise, growing faintly worried when she realized it could probably be heard through the walls of the whole castle.

'_Roowl, mrrrowwl'_

Something furry and noisy was rubbing up against her legs, and in the flash of a second that it took Mildred to realize that Tabby was the one making that awful noise, the door was flung open and Maud rushed in.

"Quick! We've got to hide him before HB finds out it's your cat making that noise!"

Her eyes were wild with panic and she seemed ready to have a heart attack right there on the spot. Mildred watched her friend's wild mutterings and movements with an alarmed eye.

"I know!" Maud cried out suddenly, heaving Tabby up from his spot on the floor she opened the door wide and put him down outside, slamming it closed again with a satisfied smile. "Now HB won't know whose cat's making the noise since they all look the same here!"

A beat.

The door was shoved back open and Tabby hurled back into the room with a loud '_ROOOOWL' _of protest.

"Trust your cat to be the only identifiable one of the whole bunch."

There seemed to be a distant shout coming from the other end of the castle which sounded like Miss Hardbroom. Suddenly the situation looked irretrievable.

"Morning all!"

The door had been opened once again and Enid strolled cheerfully into the room with a smile and a bag of catnip.

There was another echoing '_Mraaaaa'_ from Tabby as he spied the bag of catnip in Enid's hand. Now the situation looked plain dangerous.

"Tabby looks lively this morning doesn't he?" She said brightly, pulling out a catnip drop and flicking it across the room. Tabby then proceeded to make a racket as he dived after the treat.

"How is it you can make a bad situation worse just by walking into a room?" Mildred sighed.

"On account of effort." Enid shot back happily.

"Great, so it's become a talent this has it? You do realize HB's going to bury us six feet under?"

"Speaking of which…" Maud said quietly as the menacing sound of booted footfalls could be heard from the bottom of the hall, growing ever closer.

"Here comes the judge."

There were several loud knocks on the door and an ominous sounding;

"Mildred Hubble!"

Forget looks killing, Constance Hardbroom had a voice that could kill you, resurrect you and would wait by the gravestone to kill you all over again.

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_AN. Quite literally, a thousand and one apologies here...I definitely didn't intend to take so long updating this, but a combination of computer/internet troubles and some real life DRAMA kept me away from even thinking about writing. I bet you could all pretty much guess what I was gonna do here from the title, but I still had some fun with this one, mostly the Maud and Mildred exchange in the early morning-it wouldn't leave me alone until I added it in somewhereXD And yes, I know Tabby's meowing sounds awful written down, but I couldn't think of a way to get it across without copious usage of the letters M, R and O.  
Chapter 6 is (somewhat) in the works, so expect that sometime before 2010...maybe.  
Hope you liked it~_


	6. Baby, we'll be up all night

_Chapter 6-Baby, we'll be up all night_

"What do you mean it won't wear off for a few more days?!!"

"Well, I think I put a little more in than I was supposed to."

"I've been awake for more than a day already; I think it's safe to say you put in a _lot_ more than you were supposed to."

"On the bright side, I don't need to wake you up this morning."

"…"

Cut back to the previous day and you really begin to see the source of the problem.

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Thursday morning started out as Thursday mornings rarely did anymore at Cackle's, with peace, quiet and most importantly, absolutely no uproar.

Though the prospect of having a few more minutes of blessed sleep before breakfast would have seemed quite nice to most girls, for Mildred Hubble it sparked a new kind of terror.

There had been days like this before, where Enid had not created a racket and frayed tempers before the first lesson, but after experiencing several of them Mildred knew that this was exactly the kind of day she had to be cautious of.

It meant that Enid was _planning _something.

In a way, that was almost as bad as the alarms themselves, as Mildred would have to see Enid several times a day and each time she would be wearing a knowing smirk, as if to say;

"_You'll really love this next alarm Mildred."_

And that was an indicator to Mildred that Enid's alarm the following morning would be several times worse than the ones before it.

So in short, on this particular Thursday morning, Mildred Hubble was absolutely scared stiff.

The rest of the first years were as well, though for an entirely different reason altogether. This had to do with Miss Hardbroom.

The constant string of disturbances, while slowly but surely driving Mildred insane, were also having a negative impact on Miss Hardbroom as well. She had become several times more irritable than usual on a good day and was highly likely to blast you into oblivion on a bad one.

Which was why the mere mention of a morning potions class could send the first year class into spasms of terror.

This morning's was no different, with several detentions already handed out for sloppy potion work and lack of speed when answering questions.

Even Ethel had not escaped unscathed, twice being called a 'bat-brained imbecile' by a fuming HB.

Some were beginning to suspect she _liked_ being angry at the world in general.

The fact that the potion they were working on was especially difficult was of no help whatsoever.

They had been instructed to prepare a _vires _potion. Miss Hardbroom had told them that it was able to strengthen the properties of anything it was applied to and therefore delicate brewing was required.

Of course, delicacy was hardly the first year's biggest asset, and by the end of the lesson it seemed as if the potions lab would be needing new workbenches on account of all the holes that had been blown into the last set.

Nothing of real note took place for the rest of the day and that blessed peace lasted until dinnertime. Mildred, Maud and Enid had sat down to eat when Mildred remembered that she'd forgotten to pick herself up a fork.

"Be right back," she said, excusing herself quickly.

Maud shook her head and laughed at her friend's terrible memory, unfortunately she failed to notice as Enid quickly slipped something into Mildred's water from a small vial concealed in her palm.

Mildred returned quickly and began to eat, completely oblivious as to Enid's sleight of hand.

She noticed it much later on however, regardless of whether she wanted to or not.

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Although there were no clocks at Cackle's, as Mildred lay awake, could guess that it was well past midnight already since she'd both read and finished two books and completed her spell casting homework in an attempt to induce sleep.

Sleep however, refused to be induced and Mildred was contemplating the idea of slipping down to the kitchens for a glass of milk when the door opened slightly and Enid's head popped through the gap.

"Not dropped off yet?" She asked, far to innocently for Mildred not to suspect something.

"You've done something. I _know _you've done something. I get to sleep really quickly, but the one night I don't is the one where you pay me a visit. What did you do?" She fired off, too quickly for Enid to attempt to inject any of her usual wit into the conversation.

"Nothing much," Enid said lightly, slipping fully into the room, "I just put a few drops of the _vires _potion we made into your water at dinner. HB mentioned that it also acted as a powerful stimulant, though I wasn't expecting it to last quite this long."

Mildred stared at her oddly for a moment. Her eye twitched every other second and she seemed to be having some massive internal debate with herself.

Slowly, she choked out, "_Why, _would you slip something like that into my water?"

"Well, to be honest, I was getting tired of thinking up new ways to wake you up. I thought it would be easier if you were already awake." She answered with a shrug.

At that moment, Mildred's debate came to an end and she leapt off of the bed towards Enid, murder in her eyes.

Until her foot caught in her bed sheets and she crashed, rather spectacularly, to the floor in front of her bemused friend.

"Alright down there?" Enid asked.

"We are going downstairs to the library, where you can look up this potion, and then brew me an antidote in the potions lab." Came the muffled, yet still annoyed response from by Enid's feet.

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This brings us right back to where we started, only this time with a little more information. Down in the library, past midnight on a Friday morning.

"What do you mean it won't wear off for a few more days?!!"

"Well, I think I put a little more in than I was supposed to."

"I've been awake for more than a day already; I think it's safe to say you put in a _lot_ more than you were supposed to."

"On the bright side, I don't need to wake you up this morning."

"…"

The two girls were currently looking through an old potions text in an attempt to reverse the effects, but with no luck.

Mildred let her head fall against the table they were sat at. It seemed she was going to be awake throughout the whole weekend and probably into Monday as well, if Enid put as much of the potion into her water as she suspected she had.

"Wait," Enid said after a few more moments of page flipping, "It says here we can brew a counter potion that _should_ reverse the effects."

"I don't like the sound of that _should_, but I suppose there's no choice." Mildred sighed. "Grab that book and let's try to brew that potion."

They quickly and quietly made their way across the castle and to the potions lab, but once there they were met with something of an obstacle.

"I know why you're not asleep yet," Enid muttered darkly as she peered into the lab, "but what's HB's excuse?"

For there, sat writing at her desk, was Constance Hardbroom and while she was there, neither student dared to even think about entering the lab.

"She's probably sick of waking up to your blasted alarms so she's slipped herself some of that stupid potion." Mildred grumbled.

"Well, I suppose there's no getting inside tonight, how about we try tomorrow instead?" Enid asked hopefully.

Mildred fixed Enid with her best glare and whispered back, "No, we are not waiting for tomorrow as I would like to sleep _tonight. _You are going in that room, telling HB what you've done and brewing me that potion."

"What? I'm not going in there!" Enid hissed back furiously, "Have you seen what a dragon HB's been lately? She'll breathe fire and burn me into a crisp if I set foot in there!"

"Enid, at this point I don't care if she locks you in her bathroom and draws all over you with toothpaste, you're going and that's that."

"Do you expect me to go in there and stick out my neck so HB can cut off my head or something?!"

"No Miss Nightshade, I expect you to brew."

The girls looked set to continue their argument well into the morning and most likely would have done, if not for the sudden and alarming voice of Miss Hardbroom crashing down from nowhere to ask;

"And what makes you think, Enid Nightshade, that I would be any less angry with you, were I not behaving like 'a dragon', as you so put it?"

At that moment, both Enid and Mildred knew exactly how outnumbered soldiers in a war felt, surrounded by the enemy with no chance of survival. Only this time the enemy was Miss Hardbroom and the fate was worse than death.

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_AN. You'll have to forgive my muse, every flash of writing inspiration for the past month has been for fics _other_ than this one, so not much was getting done. I think I'm nearing the end of this fic though (about 2 more chapters) so we can leave each other alone after that.  
This chapter went in a completely different direction than I thought it would, since I wasn't even planning on having Enid show up in the morning at all, it was just going to be Mildred running about the school at all hours. In any case it seems alrightXD_

_Hope you liked it~_


	7. Do not meddle

_Chapter 7 – Do not meddle in the affairs of sleeping Headmistresses_

As anyone who has ever met a witch will tell you, they are very secretive in nature. In addition to closely guarding ancient spells and family arts with fierce determination, they will also strive to keep any embarrassing information about themselves private with the same amount of, if not more, determination.

Miss Cackle saw this as one of the most sensible things to remember for any young witch choosing to learn at her academy, regarding the spread of gossip and rumour as things unbecoming a dignified witch. In fact, one of the first things she would tell hopeful new first years when introduced to the school was; "The only thing that will betray you worse than a friend is an unguarded secret."

A sensible thing to remember indeed. In theory.

Young witches saw secrets as some of the most valuable tings to be learned once entering Cackle's academy, regarding the spread of gossip and rumour as things completely becoming of teenage girls. One of the few things agreed on by all hopeful first year girls after being introduced to the school was; "Find a secret, any secret, and sooner or later you'll be better off for it."

In a nutshell, this meant that the fact that Miss Cackle was the most awful snorer within the whole castle was both the worst and best kept secret in the school.

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It hadn't taken Enid too long to learn this piece of information about their dear headmistress, some careful questions posed to the second years and she'd learned all about the horrible noise likely to crash down from the teachers' wing of the castle most nights.

This information by itself wasn't much help to her though; she'd already recorded horrible noise to wake Mildred up and wasn't too interested in doing it a second time. However the spell they were learning about in class today seemed to be just what Enid needed to devise another wake up alarm for tomorrow morning.

"Today class," Called Miss Cackle from her place at the front of the classroom, "we will be learning the switching spell. This spell can change the positions of objects around within an environment."

She gestured for Ethel and Drusilla to stand from their seats and continued, "For example, say I wanted to swap Ethel from where she is standing to where Drusilla is, I would say the incantation: _elabeo,_ _elpositus, elagito, elparvulus."_

With a wave of her hands and in a bright stream of magic, Ethel and Drusilla found themselves swapped to where the other had stood a moment ago.

"Thank you girls, you may sit down." Miss Cackle said with a smile. "Now, shall we practice? Repeat after me class, _elabeo,_ _elpositus, elagito, elparvulus."_

It didn't take more than twenty minutes for the entire class to memorise the spell and practice it out until everyone could perform it successfully. It took even less time than that for Enid to perfect her alarm plan using the spell.

Tomorrow morning promised to be as amusing as ever.

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It was debatable of course, exactly who the morning promised to be amusing for. Mildred was certainly _not_ amused when she was violently awoken by the cacophony of grinding and grating noises that morning.

Understandably, at first Mildred had absolutely no idea what was going on and in her drowsy state, wondered if a dragon had poked its head through the open window and was preparing to burn her to cinders.

The reality was oh so worse.

Sitting up and cautiously turning her head to the right, Mildred was greeted with the alarming sight of Miss Cackle, wrapped in a ball of bed sheets, snoring away on her bedroom floor.

At a loss for a moment, Mildred simply stared in horror at the sight of Miss Cackle, before her common sense reminded her that yes, now would be a good time to panic.

"Oh no…what am I supposed to say when she wakes up?" Mildred whispered to herself in terror. There was absolutely no way she could explain this situation away without being put into detention for the rest of the school year.

The only form of escape was the door which the sleeping headmistress was planted in front of, meaning Mildred had to step over the snoring bundle and attempt to get out into the hallway with as much stealth as she could muster.

Doomed was not a strong enough word to describe what Mildred would be if Miss Cackle woke up.

Getting out of bed and tiptoeing around to the side closest to the door, Mildred decided that the best solution would be to step directly over her headmistress and open the door enough to slip out and retreat to the hallway. Taking a moment to steel herself up, she tentatively lifted her leg up and over the bundle on the floor, placing her foot on the opposite side nearest the wall.

Bracing her hands against the wall for balance she quickly brought the other leg over and attempted to maneuver herself over to the door in the small space given to her, ignoring the rasping snores emanating from Miss Cackle.

In the few moments it took Mildred to reach the door, she let herself relax somewhat, surely nothing could go wrong now that she was so close to escaping. Letting out a small sigh of relief, Mildred gripped the handle and inched the door open ever so slightly.

Fate decided however, that something could go wrong.

In that moment that Mildred pulled open the door, Enid was on the other side opening the door herself to see the results of the switching spell she had cast on Miss Cackle and the pile of discarded uniforms on Mildred's bedroom floor.

The result being that Mildred, not expecting the extra force from the door, was sent tumbling backwards with a squeak, straight on top of the sleeping headmistress.

The whole room was silent for a single instant; Enid was stood in the open doorway frozen in shock, gazing down on Mildred who seemed to be sat on the pile of blankets that was Miss Cackle, which seemed to have stopped snoring.

"Mildred Hubble." Came an exasperatedly groggy voice from under the bed sheets, "Would you care to explain exactly why I am on the floor of your room at this moment in time?"

"W-well Miss Cackle…" Mildred stammered back, glaring at Enid as she quietly shut the door and escaped. "You see I'm not entirely sure of that one myself…"

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_AN. And I'm back once again! Seriously though, I can't apologise enough to you guys who are still following this story, I really didn't intend for chapter 7 to take _this _long. I blame a combination of evil A-levels and a writer's block a mile long (playing Persona 4 for almost 2 weeks straight didn't help either).  
I still hope that there are some people reading this fic, long update times aside I worry that it's not interesting enough to keep people amused, so any thoughts are more than appreciated. Can't say when the last chapter will be up, but there will be one. I don't plan to abandon this right before it ends._

_Hope you liked it~_


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